The War for the Stream: Can Marvel, DC, or Disney win?

Bigger is not always better but tell that to Marvel when they continue to make billions of dollars on their big budget superhero style of production! Tell Disney that the giant theme parks and movies that directly tie into merchandising and after marketing and make them ridiculously rich to stop.  DC dreams of producing movies as popular as Marvel and Disney.  All of them believe bigger is better.  I disagree. Not only do I disagree with what they all are doing, I believe that the quality and future profitability of all their products are vastly decreasing. They dream of a world pre-Covid 19, that is a dream that even Disney World can’t have, we all must live with the new norm.

Smaller is better.  I never enjoyed going to the US Open in the 2000’s because the crowd was everywhere.  There were few places you could get a breath of fresh air or a second to breathe.  The tennis was amazing, but the watching live part stopped being fun.  The USTA wanted to make more money, so it got bigger, and it is now the biggest in the world.  It is also the least fun to attend, I now watch the matches at home and switch between matches with a push of a button.  I still miss being there, but I will never miss waiting on line for a half hour to go to the bathroom.  The old tournaments had more charm and less fans.  Smaller was better.

Smaller can be better, but that doesn’t stop people from growing.  Jones Beach Theater was my favorite place to see a concert.  There wasn’t a bad seat in the house, even the upper back row was fun.  Then the remodel - bigger, with obstructed view seats.  The parking lot, no public transportation to JBT, was a nightmare.  A savage rush for two lanes by two giant lots.  A mass of tired, stoned, or drunk fans, rushing to go home and getting nowhere!  The perfect place to see a concert became a hassle and if you wanted to go to concert you needed to be early and leave late.  Smaller was more fun.

Marvel made several great shows on Netflix.  They were gritty noirs, great detective stories with a superhero element.  Daredevil was excellent, as was Luke Cage and Jessica Jones.  My favorite, Iron Fist, was a comic I read during my childhood that I absolutely loved.  Together they were “The Defenders,” a team-up of all the Netflix Marvel heroes.  I really enjoyed that series.  Then Marvel, in their infinite wisdom, felt the need to join forces with Disney and pull all of their Netflix shows.  They have yet to recreate that level of quality and imagination.  The Disney shows are bigger, not better!

The idea of Television, radio, internet, and more have been blended into a vehicle called streaming.  Content has broken free from where it was born, and it now swims in the streaming ecosystem.  YouTube offers everything. Spotify does podcasts and music. Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, Disney, and many more offer streaming content of both shows and movies.  The entertainment pie is being cut up before our very eyes with one idea, get bigger!  But content must be made and there is the biggest problem: who will make this content and where do the ideas come from?

Netflix and Amazon have made entertaining content in the past, but it was done at a huge expense.  Disney has entered the field dropping boatloads of cash.  In the 1990’s and 2000’s many ideas came from San Diego Comic Con.  There, both large and small comic book creators would promote their titles and attempt to get the most publicity possible.  Then Hollywood came calling!  These comics were so successful as movies, comic companies became the most fertile ground for new movie products.  Comic companies became entertainment empires and with it they lost what made them great, the small creators writing and drawing the comics.  Bigger will be their downfall, with the best path to prolonged profitability is to sustain the environment that created the ideas in the first place.  Smaller is not only higher quality, but it’s sustainable!

The Heroes That We All Are

I got beat up at the bus stop when I was in second grade. The incident would change my outlook for the world.  I became unmanageable and prone to rage attacks.  I lashed out at everyone!  My cousin Roger came to my rescue one Passover.  We were at my aunt’s house in Larchmont, and I had gotten into another fight with my sister (14 months older than me).  I got screamed at and was told to go into my aunt’s basement to cool off.  I cried so hard that I hurt my ribs.  My cousin Roger, a giant of a teenager standing at 6’4”, came downstairs and talked to me.

Then he took out his old comic collection.  He had a box of comics from the 50’s and 60’s, I stopped crying that second.  He pulled out an Incredible Hulk comic and had me look at it.  I was a weak reader, but I found it easy to follow the dialog and story.  The Hulk was kind, but when he was mistreated or attacked, he “Smashed!”  His rage gave him power and make the bad guys fear him.  Roger gave me all the comics and told me that things would be alright, I believed him.  I returned upstairs and behaved, but I sensed a change inside.  Roger had given me something I never experienced, the complete and unadulterated love of reading!  He also introduced me to my spirit guide, The Incredible Hulk, and he would be there to defend me from evil for the rest of my life.

My sister broke my nose when I was 11 during the ice storm that gripped Long Island in 1977.  A tree fell over my parents’ car and my sister and I were playing on top of it.  My sister pulled a branch back and let it go.  The branch whipped across my face, shattering my nose.  The drive to the hospital was dangerous and scary with the ice-covered roads.  They did their best to set my nose and deal with the impact.  The damage was so severe that I was required to stay in the hospital for several days.  I was terrified!  Breathing was difficult and the crying made my condition life threatening. 

My mother never left my side, she even slept in the chair next to my hospital bed.  By the time I was released and allowed to return home, my mother was a wreck.  Naomi Schwartz, my mother, was many things, none of them were kind or loving.  Somehow in that moment, she became a superhero. She endured so much to allow me the feeling of safety.  She became more in that moment, she became “Super Mom!”  I would only see that person a few more times before her death, but I cling to the moments where my angry vicious mother became more, she was my hero.

The heroic spirit can be there, but needed a situation to allow it to come out.  My home was damaged by the flood after Hurricane Sandy, and the flood insurance company was fighting with us, so my home was in a state of post-flood.  Enter my old friend and cannabis enthusiast, Ed. He had heart surgery and other medical problems, but he showed up at my house one day with his giant crowbar.  For hours we did demolition and he did everything possible to cheer me up.  Even with no feeling in his feet and being 15 years my senior, he stayed for the whole day, and he kept working.  Like “The Thing” from the Fantastic Four, he clobbered one wall after another.  He still is my hero!

My favorite hero was my Grandmother.  She was a gym teacher when she was younger and worked with the slower kids.  Ida May was five feet tall and the classiest woman you would ever meet.  My sister and cousins were all very smart and did well in school and life.  Then there was me, the slow kid with emotional difficulties and a love of sports.  To punish me, my parents would take away privileges, like allowing me to play little league.  I loved baseball as a kid, and not being able to play little league with my friends was a massive blow to my young mind.  My Grandmother would not hear of it!  She came out to my house one weekday, surprising my mother, and she took me to get a ball, bat, and glove. 

She signed me up for Little League and practiced baseball with me, teaching my the correct way to throw, hit, and play baseball.  My grandmother was the greatest hero I ever knew, she always did the right thing for me, no matter what the consequences.  The baseball situation took weeks to resolve, and I started attending practices without my parents knowledge.  The fights between my parents and grandmother were epic, but it was my change in behavior that convinced my parents that baseball was benefiting me.  The Superhero inside my grandmother needed a situation and a loved one in danger, but when needed, “Captain Grandmother” to the rescue! 

Thor, Captain America, Superman, and the countless others are fictional embodiments of the finest qualities in humans.  Courage, Valor, Honor, Defending the Weak, and other noble qualities are shown on a daily basis, but not by costumed heroes, by normal folks doing the extraordinary.   Movies are setting new attendance records, lifting the humble superhero serial into a high art form and making ungodly amounts of money.  Maybe this can be a catalyst to transform a society of victims into empowered heroes ready to save the day!  I’m ready!